


Aim for the Head

by ur_the_puppy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clexaweek2021 Day 7, F/F, Free day, clexaweek2021, ive never written in canon so bear with me, kinda Kill Bill au, splits off from 307, this will get violent at points as well, trigger warnings for lots of mentions of lexas death and dealing with grief, who needs therapy when youve got a sword?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29899476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ur_the_puppy/pseuds/ur_the_puppy
Summary: After accidentally shooting Lexa, Titus knew he’d never survive it. Not with witnesses, anyway. So wiping the blood off his gun, he’d dragged Clarke outside, and he shot her too, buried the secret where no one would find it.But Titus isn’t a good shot.And the ground is rarely forgiving.orbasically it's Kill Bill but set in canon.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 20
Kudos: 92
Collections: Clexaweek2021





	Aim for the Head

**Author's Note:**

> a very belated fix-it fic that splits from 307. I got this idea bc I watched kill bill a long while ago and within the first 15 minutes I was so violently slammed with inspiration I had to pause the film and frantically wrote down notes for this story. im a bit nervous posting this bc ive been adamant abt avoiding canon since ive never felt really confident enough. i still kinda don't, but i've had a lot of fun writing this and its clexa week so! here ya go.
> 
> however, first off i do want to put here just another BIG trigger warning for explicit mentions and depictions of lexas death. lexa is technically dead so if youre sensitive with that, you probably shouldn't read this. also i haven't watched the show since she died, so im running off my memory from five years ago and the godsend that is the 100 wiki, so i do apologise in advance if i mess up a couple timeline details with the show AND i do want to say now: im not too fond with skaikru and i especially dont like bellamy, so again, if that doesnt sit well with you, then please just click off. im not looking for a fight. each to their own and all that.
> 
> *cough cough* also also for the sake of convenience I’m giving clarke a relatively good understanding and speaking of trig because I can and I’m tired and it just makes my life so much easier. we're just gonna assume she like found a tutor up in polis alright? good, thank you.
> 
> alright! now that all the warnings are out the way, i do wanna a say quick MASSIVE thanks to butmakeitagain for betaing and to slowmo and dreamsaremywords for reading this over just being so supportive with it. seriously, just thank you.
> 
> sorry for the long ass note, ill shut up now. happy clexaweek lads. i sincerely hope you enjoy :)

_The more you try to erase me_

_The more, the more_

_The more that I appear._

[\- The Eraser by Thom Yorke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e97tkGJ28yU)

It all happened so fast.

Clarke was barely even aware of it. It felt like it was just seconds ago she was curled over in a bed so big she could spreadeagle without even falling off, a warm and sated body pressed right in front of her, her hands drifting slow over Lexa’s side then to her stomach and earning a sleepy smile that evolved into Lexa turning over so Clarke could kiss it off her.

And now she was holding down that same stomach with as much pressure as she could, even though the blood just kept coming and streaming and slipping up between the gaps in her fingers like nothing she did ever fucking mattered. The whole time, Lexa just watched and watched her and the worst part was that she was smiling, by the end of it. Because she knew how this would end. Lexa always knew.

Then Lexa spoke, and she never did again. They were her last words and that was it. That was fucking _it_.

The rest didn’t matter. Titus pushed past her, his hands trembling even as he did what he was made for finally, and rolled Lexa over, made that thing crawl up from neck. Barely seconds later he was already taking her limp body before she could stop him, carrying her out the room and yelling so loud his voice broke.

She couldn’t stop looking at her hands. At the black blood over them. It didn’t feel real, because even with her heart dying in her chest—she could still _feel_ them, the lovebites Lexa had kissed in all along her chest. Lexa was gone but her marks weren’t. Clarke knew deep down they never would be. She’d carry them right into her grave.

Irony was rarely kind.

Murphy ran. He saw, was there the entire time, but unlike her he wasn’t stuck staring at the blood on his hands and knew to haul ass.

Clarke, though.

“Come with me,” Titus snapped at her, suddenly next to her and grabbing her arm.

He dragged her outside without resistance. Her mind was still stuck in hours ago. Awareness only broke through the overwhelming tide of grief when she tasted the air, the _wet_ air. It was raining. Clarke stared as the rain kept streaming over her hands. The black blood almost made it look like ink running—like it wasn’t even blood, it wasn’t _Lexa’s_ blood. Like she could go back to their bed and find her waiting.

The rain was cold enough Clarke blinked rapidly, and she glanced around and saw that they were completely alone. It was only them. She turned to him and now was when that fury hit, the sort of rage that she’d burn the entire world down with. Titus must have seen that spark light in her eyes because he kicked out her legs before she could come for him, punched her in the face when she immediately tried to push back up. Clarke bared her teeth, but her eyes snapped to the gun that Titus was now pulling from within the shadows of his robes, the one he’d just murdered Lexa with. And the one he was now aiming right back at her.

The last thing she saw was Titus above her, Lexa’s blood still over his hands, splattered over his robes. The endless dark tunnel of the gun barrel. And the sky, opening up above them, but there was no rain on this godforsaken earth that could wash the blood soaked into their skin. _Nothing_ could cleanse them of this.

“I’m sorry,” Titus said roughly, the gun just shaking and shaking.

It was the last words she ever heard. He pulled the trigger before she’d even gotten halfway through opening her mouth.

Considering what she was going to say, it was probably a good thing.

-

There was endless nothing.

Just her, going under and under and under.

Where, though, she didn’t know.

But still she fell.

-

The first thing she registered was pain.

Naturally.

She couldn’t open her eyes at first. Her head felt like it was splintering open, like there was some vice clamped right around her skull and each second it just tightened that bit more, pushing and pushing until the bone would fracture, crack and fissure under the mounting pressure.

Nothing else really got through her focus, and so for those first few moments that Clarke crawled right back up from her grave, coughed out the dirt from her lungs—she just laid there in what she was only vague sure was a bed, listened to the soft and weak _beep_ that kept sounding next to her ears.

That tugged at her more. Her eyes were too exhausted, but she could wade through and make out those whisperings of the world around her. It was muffled, though. Like it was all underwater. The quiet drips echoed like a cave chamber; the creak and hum of wood more like hushed screaming; and then something else, something new.

A voice.

“Clarke? Wait, _shit_ , oh my god. Clarke, are you here? Do you hear me?”

The furthest she got in replying was twitching her head towards the way the voice was coming from. They gasped, a harsh screeching in her ears as whoever they were tripped over something, pulled back so they could yell for someone else to _get in here_.

She couldn’t work out who it was. Her energy was spent just twitching her head, and she was already being dragged back under depthless waters.

“Are you still with me?” was the last garbled mess of words she made out.

 _Probably not,_ Clarke thought idly.

The world blurred into nothing again.

It took a few more tries before she finally got somewhere real. The second time she woke, there was no voice this time, and even though her eyes still wouldn’t _open_ the world sounded less like she was drowning, the details all coming through a little clearer. Her head still pounded like nothing else, but this round she got her fingers twitching, to feel the soft material they were lying on.

As a test, she dug her nails in. Felt the fabric bunch under her fingertips.

She didn’t know what she was even testing for.

The screaming in her skull made it near impossible to think. Or even just remember. It was the sort of pain that erased everything, that made you forget anything else that wasn’t survival. But there was something—there was this _ache_ , right in her chest but deep; so, so deep. Beneath even her flesh and her ribs and her heart. Something burned there. Hollow and dying.

It was far worse than her head.

-

She woke up in stages. In the end, she wasn’t sure what attempt it was when she’d finally built herself up enough that she could move her hands, then her head and her neck and finally, with all the sheer stubborn will she could muster, her eyes creaked open. 

Heavy, heavy, heavy.

It took a moment for the world to blur into focus. The lights above her were too bright and made her wince. Maybe she was dreaming it, or maybe she’d just gotten used to it, but that agony pulsing incessantly in her skull didn’t feel as blinding as before. It was still damn near the only thing she could focus on, sure.

But her eyes fully opened and she scanned… wherever the hell she was.

Now, Clarke didn’t really know what to expect to see after dying.

It certainly wasn’t the tired face of John Murphy staring down at her like she was the best thing to ever happen to him.

“You’re awake,” Murphy breathed, his voice trembling in a way she’d never heard it before.

She tried to speak. All that came out was some croaky, unintelligible mess. Her throat was so dry _,_ and also, Clarke realised with dawning horror, it was unused. Seriously, _seriously_ unused. Murphy swore and scrambled to get something behind him, though he came back next to her with a metal cup of water in his hands. With his help she managed to drink it mostly successfully, even if a fair bit got spilt down her chin. Her throat still felt like sandpaper and it sounded even worse.

“Is this hell?”

Murphy was still looking at her weirdly, like this was a miracle he’d never expected to have. 

Her words seemed to finally break through to him, though. 

“Really? You see my face and _that’s_ your first thought?”

“Where am I? What is this…” And that was when she remembered. Everything. Where it all came back, that not even the stampede furiously rampaging away in her skull could save her from. “Oh,” Clarke whispered.

Murphy’s jittery, excited grin faded as he watched the realisation surface in her eyes. “Hey, Griffin, don’t—” he stopped, didn’t know what to say. He forced in a careful breath. “I’m going to get your mother, okay? Just, just stay with me, _please_.”

“I’m going to sleep,” Clarke said, and to prove it she turned her head away, tucked it into the flat pillow beneath.

“What? No, Clarke—”

“I’m sleeping now.”

She closed her eyes.

-

Despite her prayers, Clarke woke up again.

Figures the ground wouldn’t even give her the fucking privilege of dying on her own time. And yeah, maybe that was what she got for daring to hope even one thing in her life wouldn’t go wrong. How else could it have gone, really. Even her grave will spit her right back out.

But despite every one of those odds stacked against her, Clarke woke up.

Maybe this was just the universe’s way of getting retribution.

It was certainly earned.

Something hot burned on her eyes. She soon realised this had been the cause for dragging her out of sleep, and this time when her eyes creaked back open it was not to see Murphy’s face, but to a window at the end of the room. Lined by it were daggy, archaic curtains filled with so many moth holes it let in more light than it kept out—but even those pathetic remains of fabric were crowded up at the sides of a cracked window, so the rising sun could bleed through. 

The tall trees in the way made their shadows stretch out for what looked near endless along the ground, like someone had been painting them in only to get knocked into the elbow, sent the black line streaking across the grass. Dawn light bathed the whole patch of secluded woods in a warm glow. She couldn’t see anything through the window but trees and bushes.

Dawn was so much prettier in Polis. Here was nothing compared to it.

The sun was beaming almost directly into her eyes now, but that wasn’t why they burned and spilled, forced her to rip her head away from the sight and look anywhere else. Except her skull _pounded_ at the attempted movement, and Clarke swore viciously. It felt like the hangover earned only after downing the entire planet’s supply of alcohol.

“Piece of shit,” Clarke croaked. Each word rubbed against her throat like a grater but _fuck it_. 

Her words were heard, though.

A woman had been asleep in a chair across from her. It was an old one, too, looked about as eaten up as the curtains did. Faded floral patterns, patches of stuffing showing through the rips. It looked like it belonged in a living room, not a bedroom, which was a fact the woman didn’t seem to care for.

But Clarke just had to take one glance at her to know who was tangled up on that chair.

Abby jerked awake, eyes wildly taking in where she was, what had woken her.

“Clarke,” she exhaled, meeting her eyes from across the room and almost immediately tearing up. When Clarke just stared at her, Abby jumped to her feet and rushed to her bedside. She fell down to her knees, pulling Clarke’s limp hand into her own and holding it, kissing her palm and laughing, crying. “You’re awake. You’re _awake_.”

Clarke frowned. “What…”

At hearing the dry crack of her voice, Abby quickly reached for the pitcher of water Clarke didn’t see on the side table next to her, filled up that same cup and handed it to her. And honestly, at this point she was just going to find a river and face plant right into it. It would probably be more effective.

“What happened?” Clarke finally asked, once she’d chugged the entire cup.

Abby’s eyes were still constantly tracking back and forth over Clarke’s face. “What do you remember?”

Too much.

“Titus,” Clarke said. “And… and Lexa, the gun, the…”

That was as far as she got. The most she could _say_.

Abby only nodded, somehow looking relieved and pained simultaneously. “That’s good. Do you recognise me?”

“Yeah,” Clarke whispered. She could barely see through the tears in her eyes.

Her mother’s relief was tangible. “Do you remember what your name is?”

“The one Dad lost the bet on,” Clarke said with a watery smile, and that was as far as her mother got too before it all seemed to hit right at once. She burst forward, throwing her arms around her and pulling her right into her chest, hands fisting the back of Clarke’s shirt, and then rocking back and forth, crying, kissing the top of her head, hugging her so, so close.

The rocking made her head throb even worse, though.

Gently, Clarke had to push her away, just so she could wince and hiss at the waves of pain now bouncing around in her skull. But when she raised a hand, held where the agony was stemming from, instead of feeling warm skin she felt something cold and hard and smooth.

Metal.

Her breathing hitched.

Slowly, her hand fell back to her lap, and then she was just staring at it, dumbfounded.

It was still trembling when Abby’s hand reached out and covered her own. “The bullet clipped through the side of your skull,” she explained carefully. “You were extremely lucky.”

“Titus is just a shit shot,” Clarke said back.

Her whole body felt like static. She couldn’t help it but reach up again, tentatively brush away what her hair was hiding and _feel_ the patch of metal that was now replacing the missing part of her skull, let her fingertips trail the edges of it. The stitches were packed tight, professional but still _messy_ , like the hand that had sewn them in had been shaking, trembling exactly like how they were trained not to.

Clarke looked up to her mother again. “Where am I? How am I here? This isn’t…” She glanced around the room. It looked nothing like Arcadia. Matter of fact, it didn’t even look like anything Grounder made either, but more like those sorts of homes she’d seen in old Earth films—albeit this one had shitty, crumbling wallpapers and half the foundational structure was showing through the walls.

“We’re outside Arcadia,” Abby confirmed, following the way Clarke was scanning the room.

That just confused her more, though. “ _Outside_ Arcadia? Why?”

Abby grimaced. She looked like she was going to answer, only to backtrack right as she opened her mouth. “I know you must be starving,” she said instead. “I’ve tried to keep you sustained through an IV and a feeding tube but obviously we only have… so little down here, so I couldn’t give you near as much as I wanted. And then with the war it was even harder to get to you and find supplies, and—”

“The _war_?”

Abby froze.

Her heart pounded violently in her chest, almost as bad as her skull. “Mom, what war? How—how long has it been?”

Abby didn’t reply for a long minute. It was obvious that she’d wanted to wait, to give Clarke the space to process things one at a time. But Clarke’s eyes flashed at seeing that and Abby just sighed in defeat.

“You’ve been in a coma for two years.”

Clarke blinked, couldn’t do anything beyond staring wide-eyed at her.

“And everyone thinks you’re dead,” Abby went on hesitantly.

“What else?” Clarke demanded, because she knew her mother, and she could see how uncomfortable she was, how she was tiptoeing something.

Abby sucked in a sharp breath. “And… that you murdered the Commander.”

Clarke fell back into the bed and stared up at the burnt ceiling. There were century old scorch marks still burned there, even shifty-looking planks of wood from where the bombs must’ve torn chunks of the ceiling apart, ripped it open like a belly. It was even in the air. She could smell it: the dust, the age. Like the house itself was a skeleton everyone couldn’t bear to bury.

Her eyes dropped, though. Watched the bedroom window. To where the early morning sunlight kept bleeding in through the dusty glass, unconcerned for any of this.

A new day. Funny how the morning’s all looked the same, that she could track the way the sun stretched and confuse it with every other morning she’d been down here for. Really, if she’d just gone out there—but never talked to her mother, never met another person—she wouldn’t even know, wouldn’t even _realise_ just how much had changed.

Almost, Clarke could close her eyes. Go back in time.

If she wanted.

-

After a week, the pain in her head had eased back enough it was only a background concern.

A dull ache that pressed and pressed, but nothing more.

Abby barely left her side. She seemed convince Clarke would drop dead any second, and while at the start Clarke was just as relieved to have her back it had gotten to the point where she actually wanted the presence of John fucking Murphy simply so she wouldn’t have to deal with the panicked looks from her mother if her breathing so much as tripped.

To be fair, though, as annoying as Murphy was, the one thing she could respect was he was honest. He was full of a constant stream of snarky insults, sure, and pretty much near every word from his mouth came out barbed and dripping with sarcasm—but when Clarke asked him who else knew about her, he answered without hesitation.

“Just me and your mom,” he said, not looking at her. He picked up a card from a facedown pile next to him, and they both tensed, waiting for it as Murphy slapped the card down, face up on the pile sitting on Clarke’s bed. It was a six. The one below it was an ace, so they both relaxed again.

They were playing Snap. It was Murphy’s idea after Abby mentioned she wanted to test Clarke’s reflexes.

Clarke nodded slowly. “And you’ve been hiding me for two years because…?”

She threw down a card. It didn’t match.

Murphy snorted and gave her an incredulous look. “Everybody thinks you killed the _Commander_ , Princess. Just how exactly do you reckon the Grounders would react if they catch word you’re still breathing?”

Clarke frowned, though said nothing. It made sense. How the world felt about her was exactly how she felt about Titus. And yeah, there’d be no doubt that if _she_ caught word her bullet had missed, that he was out there comatose somewhere; she’d track him down and smother the pillow over his face herself.

“What happened with him? With Titus?”

“Still alive,” Murphy said, and sounded appropriately pissed about that. “Dick head is untouchable. Talk all the shit you want, but having a job that important with no one else to replace you is a pretty fucking good safety net.”

For a moment they both just stared at the cards. Every muscle in her strung tight, and she could _feel_ that something that burned inside the cavern in her chest, the one that always opened up whenever she dared to settle on Titus’ name for too long. But then Murphy was sighing and shrugged it off like he always did. He picked another card out and threw on the pile.

It was a match. They both froze for a fraction of a heartbeat, and then lurched out at the same time.

“Snap!” Murphy shouted, slapped down his hand just before Clarke’s could.

Clarke cursed. Murphy smirked, smugly took the pile and added it to his own, shuffling the cards. “You’re a bitch.”

“Takes one to know one,” he shot back easily.

“Obviously you cheated.”

Murphy just looked at her. “How do you even cheat at _Snap_?”

“Predetermine the cards. _Obviously_.”

“Obviously,” Murphy repeated in a mocking voice. He was still smirking, though, because they both knew that he _was_ sort of cheating because she hadn’t used her arms in two years, was still getting the weight in them back. Not exactly a fair game.

Clarke raised a brow, though her triumphant grin faded not seconds after. Murphy saw and sobered too. It was because he knew why. He’d been there, after all. Had watched the whole thing.

The one thing Clarke was resolutely doing her best at, it was not thinking about… _her_. But, she had always been the one thing that Clarke never stopped thinking about. Even back at the start it’d been like that, and now it was even worse. Somehow it’d been two whole _years_ since that day in the tower and Lexa was the one still stuck in her grave while Clarke couldn’t even offer the same back to her.

Figures it’d go like that. Lexa was always the one taking the first step.

“I never got around to teaching her poker,” Clarke said quietly, because apparently she couldn’t even do the one fucking thing she should. She tried to laugh, but the sound didn’t come out right. “She would’ve been so fucking good at it, you know? We’d have cleaned up.”

Murphy didn’t answer. He reached for her stack of cards, though. Gently took them out from under her shaking hands and added them to his own pile, to pack the deck away.

“We would have been so _good_ ,” Clarke spat, seething.

But then she was crying and the sobs were shattering her chest and Murphy silently snuck out of the room, left her to grieve alone.

She was grateful.

Turns out, though, that the real pain wasn’t anything to do with the bullet that’d gone through her head. It was what Clarke learnt one day, when neither her mother and Murphy were in her room. She could hear them arguing down the hall—the walls might have once been soundproofed, but that was a long time ago from now—and so Clarke took the offered chance for what it was and threw her blanket to the side, swung her legs off the bed in a bid to get to the window.

What she actually got to was the floor.

Abby made some panicked noise down the hall at hearing the _thud_ and a pained curse, the sound of them both sprinting back.

Clarke just sighed and rolled her head against the carpet, looked down at her legs that were the thinnest they’d ever been since she hit the ground. Even _before_. “Forgot the legs,” Clarke muttered to herself, far too late. She sighed and went back to pathetically watching the window. “Fuck.”

Abby and Murphy came rushing into the room and Clarke only had a few more seconds to sprawl out on the frayed carpet before arms were hooking under her armpits and grabbing her ankles. Her mother was already off on some panicked tangent as they carefully settled her back into bed, ranting on how foolish she was and if it was her goal in life to give her a heart attack because it _had_ to be, right?

Clarke just sighed through her nose and waited for it to end. Murphy watched Abby’s increasingly frantic fretting, and lucky for him, the bastard had a working set of non-atrophied legs and he could slowly back away, slip out the door and firmly _out of sight_ from the Griffins. It was probably one of the smartest things he’d ever done.

When Abby finally stopped spiralling, she closed her eyes, and forced in a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, like even she was hearing how badly she was losing it, and Clarke glanced to her for that. Abby just smiled tiredly, opening up her eyes again. “Sorry. I’m… You’ve been gone for so long, I never thought you’d even wake up. Just, _please_ , I need you—I _need_ you to be careful.”

Clarke swallowed, the guilt that she just never seemed to escape leaking into her voice. “I forgot my legs.”

“You forgot your legs?” Abby repeated, but her tired smile was more genuine, now.

“The state of them, I mean.”

“Right,” Abby said, though the panic traded out for amusement at this point. “What were you even trying to get to? Do you need the bathroom?”

“The window,” Clarke said softly.

Abby’s smile fell away. She looked up, her own eyes searching out to the world waiting behind the glass. “The outside?”

Clarke stared out through the trees. “I don’t know,” she breathed. “I don’t know what I was running for.”

They stayed there together, watching the leaves glisten.

-

The pain faded. The muscle grew back. The days changed.

It didn’t take long for Clarke to suss they were sitting right in the in-between, that she’d woken up sometime in the tail end of spring. The house was slowly heating up, merely by virtue of the light let in from outside, and new flowers sprung while others died and suffered. Murphy always complained about it if she made the mistake of standing still for too long around him.

It always left her confused. Every time she’d just stare at him, listening to him whine how much the heat was a pain in the ass, while the only thing she could think was how they didn’t even _have_ seasons up above. In a space station, seasons were simply that ancient tradition they all just sighed wistfully about. The Ark had always been something static. The temperature didn’t change; the walls all looked the same; even the view didn’t falter off course, spare for the occasional cosmic event.

She’d also spent almost a year in solitary. Three hundred and thirty-four days, to be exact.

Hearing Murphy complain about the seasons left her wanting to punch his face _just_ a little bit.

But time moved on. Suddenly it’d been one week, and then two, and then three and all those pain-staking, infuriating efforts of physical therapy and constant diagnostic checks by her mother—as dying even once had kinda completely destroyed Abby’s trust in her she wouldn’t do it again—after all that, the effort was paying off.

She got to take in her first breath of fresh air again. It tasted about as revolutionary as it had that first step onto the ground, filling up her lungs like a second chance. They really _were_ in the middle of nowhere too, though that probably wasn’t too hard to achieve nowadays. Still, it was Trikru territory, and Arcadia was meant to only be something like a few hard hours on horseback away.

It was another night alone of company, bar for Murphy, who only half counted as company. Her mother was gone again, something that was happening more frequently.

“It’s only her and Kane left trying to stop Pike from fucking us into the ground,” Murphy explained, the both of them sat down on the floor in the graveyard disguising itself as a living room. The bodies were all over place—but they were in the cracked and singed photographs smashed on the floor, bookcases toppled over and leaving a mine-field of paperbacks to tiptoe around, the old couch all ripped and torn and burned the same way the matching chair across was.

It was one Clarke recognised, too. The sibling chair was upstairs and tucked up next to her bed.

Clarke only nodded casually from the floor. She sagged onto the couch ledge behind her, surprisingly lacking the fire she figured she’d feel at hearing Murphy’s words. “Pike’s still ruining us, then?”

Murphy snorted and took a swig from the bottle in his hands. “When isn’t he?” His face immediately twisted, though, shuddering at the taste. It was clearly disgusting and yet Murphy kept drinking from it. Clarke just shook her head in exasperation.

“Why do you keep drinking that? You hate it every time.”

“Pardon me for not taking health advice from the woman who got shot in the head.”

Fair point.

It had to be close to midnight now. The old fireplace was crackling quietly in front of her, though they were careful to only throw in enough logs to offer a source of light. Each day felt hotter than the last. Even now the air was still warm and muggy and got so thick sometimes she could _taste_ it. It pissed Murphy off to no end, but it left Clarke reeling.

She watched where the quiet flames were licking at the worn and sooty bricks. It made the shadows ripple everywhere. Between her thumb and forefinger, she kept rubbing that escaped bit of string from the carpet, though at this point pretty much all the carpet was like that, the material all breaking apart and reaching up like fingers clawing through a grave. Feeling for the surface.

Clarke understood why this relic was where they’d gone into hiding in. Once, around just after she got solid control of her muscles again, could walk without her hands catching the wall or Abby nervously hovering around her—once, that gnawing curiosity overcame her. And she searched through the house. Just to see, just to learn.

Not a lot came out of it. There weren’t any other houses around here, which initially Clarke thought as strange, didn’t understand why there would just be _one_ and then nothing else with only the woods for company. But then she started finding things. Burned remains of board games, bookcases in almost every room. The deck at the front with the weeds crawling up between the planks, curling all up around those deck chairs that were rotting, charred at the edges.

Everything she found, it centred on one thing.

Escape.

And that was what this house had been, hell knows how many generations ago. It was the place someone had once treated as their runaway. When everything went wrong, and every day felt like they were eating them alive; this was it. This was where they came to forget. To _be_ forgotten. 

In some way, the house was still fulfilling its purpose.

“When did the war end?” Clarke asked, keeping her voice low. She didn’t bother looking at Murphy, focused on the piece of carpet she was still rolling between her fingers.

Murphy grunted, and apparently took another swig because then he was cursing, shaking off the taste. “Just a month ago,” he wheezed, coughing roughly. “Roan finally got a negotiation with the kid, organised a ceasefire.”

That didn’t surprise her. According to her mother, the war against Azgeda wasn’t even so much a war, but more the result of one person fucking up so badly the rest of the world paid for it. It was Nia’s last go at ruining everything. Even dead she was still fucking things up from beyond the grave, and so Clarke wasn’t even that shocked to hear after Lexa was killed, and everyone was still grieving, still furious, Ontari had snuck in during the night in a bid to kill all the other Nightbloods before the Conclave could even go down. To secure the throne herself.

But it was a doomed plan from the beginning. With Lexa dead, with no current Commander, the security around the waiting Nightbloods dramatically increased. The previous Commander had pretty much _just_ been murdered in her own home. You couldn’t even go up one floor in the tower without multiple guards asking your business and patting you down.

Ontari was a formidable warrior, though. A mad dog, sure. But Nia was good at raising killers. Ontari got close—closer than probably anyone else could—and while she didn’t _complete_ her mission, overwhelmed and discovered just before she could make that door, she’d gotten close enough that everyone knew what her goal was. What she’d been trying to do.

It was a blatant violation of the Coalition.

And, well. Trikru were still reeling over Lexa’s death. So of course they struck back a hundred times worse, and then they were all falling into a war that Roan absolutely did not want, wasn’t even responsible for, but had to _answer_ for all the same. It was a mess. A part of her was relieved she’d missed it.

Clarke looked up, though. “The kid?”

“You remember Aden? Little blond boy?”

Something constricted in her chest. “He’s… the Commander now?” Murphy nodded with his whole body. The shit he was drinking might’ve been disgusting, but it was sure effective. “So they had… they had the Conclave.”

“Fuck is that?”

Clarke kicked him where his leg was stretched out along the floor. “The _fight_ , dumbass. The one all the kids have. To…” she swallowed. “To choose the next Commander. The one to the death.”

Murphy just squinted at her. “They didn’t do it.”

Clarke stared at him, frozen.

“There was a _war_ going on, man. A fucking personal one, too. Those night-whatever’s are kids, sure, but they could probably kill us without breaking a sweat. They wanted all hands-on deck or some shit. And, like, they’re doomed anyway, right? So if they get killed in war, then it’s not really a loss. ‘Cause that just proves they’re not ‘ _destined_ ’ or whatever the fuck.”

Relief crashed into her so hard she almost couldn’t breathe. “But now, the war’s done?”

Murphy shrugged, the bottle spilling at the lip from the movement. “Everyone knew Aden was the golden boy and probably would have won, anyway. They made him like, temporary Commander. A regent I think? I don’t know. Titus just basically dragged him up and said, ‘Save us.’” Murphy chuckled to himself, smiling dismally. “Fuckin’ prick. Still, shit worked. Blondie boy’s been driving the ship since. Tree bastards got their revenge, Ice Nation went running with their tails between their legs; win/win.”

“Are they planning to still do the Conclave?”

“Fuck if I know. I just know what I’m told. You’re not the only one Titus wants dead.”

Clarke winced. “You’re in hiding, then?”

Murphy just snorted, though. “Please. Look, would Titus have me killed if I ever stepped foot back in Polis? Yeah, sure. But the rest…” he quirked a brow at her. “People know _you_. You’re sorta a household name, Griffin. Me? They’d just as easy kill some other sky kid with dark hair. They don’t give a shit about me.”

“But you’re a witness,” Clarke countered.

Murphy rolled his eyes. “Princess, do I look like a trustworthy person? Do you think even one person would believe me if I was stupid enough to open my mouth?”

Clarke sighed. She let go of the carpet, finally, pulled a knee up from where her legs stretched flat across the floor and tipped her head back against the couch to stare at the ceiling. Murphy was right, but Clarke already knew that. Titus didn’t really have to worry about him, even if he felt suicidal enough to step up and speak the truth. Everyone would just shrug it off as Skaikru trying to shift the blame. Hell, probably even _Arkers_ themselves would doubt his word.

Anyone who knew of Murphy wouldn’t trust him for shit.

What a fucking mess.

“He’s a good kid, though.”

Clarke blinked at the unexpectedly restrained voice of Murphy’s. Like saying something actually nice could kill him, or something. The corners of her mouth ticked up. “Oh yeah?”

She didn’t need to see him to feel his glare. “Keep grinning, asshole. God, I should have left you in that hole.” Clarke’s shit-eating grin only spread further, and Murphy sighed so loud he could’ve passed out. “I mean it, though. He’s the only reason any of us are still alive.”

Clarke’s brow twitched at that. Up on the ceiling, she stared at the planks of wood showing, the cracked and ruined plaster all destroyed and long crumbled to pieces. The charred burn marks in the exposed wood could almost be mistaken for shapes, though. Like picking animals in clouds. Pretending anything had a reason to be there.

“There was retaliation,” Clarke said slowly, but it came out more a question, guessing at the blanks in her memory.

Murphy huffed a laugh. “The Trikru went for Ice Nation because Ontari’s blood is Azgeda. They went to war over what Ontari _failed_ to do. But you?” He stopped for a beat, likely shaking his head, to all of this, to everything that’d brought them right here. “Well, you succeeded, didn’t you? Pulled off the assassination of the century. And Titus might have put you down, but Grounders are all fucking about suffering.” She could just _hear_ his empty grin. “We hadn’t suffered near enough in their eyes. They were going to kill us all for your crime.”

“Were?” Clarke said roughly, could barely get around the lump in her throat.

“The kid stopped them. All the Ambassadors were pushing just to wipe us out, right? Get an army and cut us down in the night. But the kid said no—that we shouldn’t pay, not for the crime of someone else who was already dead, was already answered for.”

Clarke’s frown deepened. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Murphy made an acknowledging noise, took another drink. And then cursed. Again.

“Lexa—” her voice cracked. She had to stop, swallow and rearrange the words. Saying her name felt like getting shot again. “She—she was like a mother to him. If I really had killed her, if that was what he believed… he wouldn’t have stood in the way. He’s too young to make a choice like that.”

Murphy was clearly not sober enough to follow along. “Which means…?”

Clarke just smiled, the backs of her eyes burning. “He doesn’t trust Titus’ word. He’s suspicious about the whole thing too.” She let out a quiet, wet laugh. “Her prodigy, alright. Won’t even trust his own _advisor_.”

Murphy laughed too. “For good fucking reason.”

Clarke looked down again. Murphy met her eyes, offering out the bottle when she kept staring but said nothing. She shook her head, grimacing even at thinking how rancid that thing must taste, and Murphy scoffed, though he pulled the bottle back into his lap, rolled his neck back so his head was flat on the couch seat and closed his eyes.

There was one thing she still wanted to ask. What she knew she shouldn’t ask.

Dying had a way of messing with your self-control, though.

It makes you remember everything you never said.

“Did we retaliate back?”

Murphy’s brow furrowed, though his eyes remained closed. The firelight played all over his face. “What do you mean?”

“Well… I’m dead, right? That’s what they all believed.” Murphy hummed, showing he understood now. Clarke’s hand clawed into the carpet, dug her fingers right into the rough fabric, felt it push up under her nails. “Then… did we do anything back?”

 _Did I mean anything_ , is what the question really was.

She knew Murphy understood when his eyes fluttered open. And by the silence. How he kept staring at the ceiling.

And maybe it was stupid and selfish and _hopeful_ , but it felt like she’d been dumped into ice-water, the reality check that punched her right back into the ground. Of course it didn’t matter. Of course, that after everything—after _everything_ she’d done for them, that she had killed and bled for—it meant nothing. She had died and the world simply moved on. No one had even bothered to glance back.

The only person who even went back for her was Murphy. Goddamn _Murphy_. Who until recently she had real hate for. But that hate meant nothing now, was never even really anything then.

Because the one she had now, the one for that man still standing in Lexa’s tower.

Nothing compared.

It took a while until she got control of her voice again. “Are we even the thirteenth clan anymore?”

“Please. Pike got the chancellor gig and just used the war as a way to cut us off even more. Aden tried to help us, at the start—kept offering deals, trying to sway us, just get Pike to _listen_ —but, hey. Pike is Pike. You think he’s going to listen to a Grounder? A Grounder _child_?” Murphy scoffed and pulled the bottle up to his lips, let it rest there. “He told Aden to go fuck himself and here we are. Starving, lonely, and right back to the old council ways.” He glanced down and met her eyes with that same sarcastic grin. “It’s like we never left space.”

They were silent for a beat.

Finally, Clarke gave in and asked for a swig. Doing this conversation sober sucked and she wanted something to dull the pain in her chest. Her head barely ached anymore, was now just a strange weight she had to get herself used to. The way her head was always tipping slightly to left, now, because that was the side where the metal was.

Murphy raised a brow, but dutifully he sat up properly, handed the bottle to her. She did a countdown in her head and it tasted exactly as she expected to, even as she shot it down her throat the fastest way possible. “ _God_ ,” Clarke coughed, gagging and holding the bottle away like even just having it close to her was too much. “Jesus fucking Christ, Murphy, what _is_ that? Gasoline?”

Murphy smirked wide at hearing the way her tone was only half-joking. “Could be. This is Monty’s throwaway batch.”

“Oh, I wonder why,” Clarke shot back, glaring at the bottle. “Urgh.”

His eyes jumped between the bottle and her. “If you’re not going to have another go…”

“No, fuck, take it away from me. God.”

She practically shoved it into his hands and his slowed reflexes meant he fumbled it a second, had to wrestle to get it secure in his grip. The sight almost made her laugh and Murphy flipped her off for it. Clarke politely flipped him off back.

But Murphy’s face slowly fell.

“They need you,” he said. “You—you know that, right? Everyone’s surviving now, but that’s it. And considering the way shit is going we probably won’t even that for much longer.”

For the first time, the first time since she’d ever been down here, Clarke didn’t feel guilt. “No,” she spat, and something opened up inside her, all that she had buried and forced herself to forget about—everything that dying had brought right back up to the surface. “What they need is a scapegoat. All they want is for someone to do for them what they never will do so they can damn them for it. I gave them everything, Murph, and for what? An early grave that none of them even bothered to fucking find? I had _one_ person who saw me, who cared, and—”

She bit off the words, already breathing too hard, too fast.

Murphy stayed quiet for once.

Clarke forced in a steadying breath, then looked up. “I gave them my life. There’s nothing else left I can even give them. No. I don’t care anymore.”

“You don’t care?” Murphy echoed, his brow pushing right up to his hairline.

Clarke nodded firmly. “Fuck them.”

It was the first time she’d ever seen Murphy smile. Like a real, honest smile. It made him look so much younger. “And finally, she sees the light.”

Clarke couldn’t help it but smile a little too, even if Murphy looked weird when he wasn’t actively insulting someone.

But then he was slamming the bottle down onto the floor and jumping up to his feet. He did it fast enough that he stumbled, and Clarke reflexively reached a hand out to him, but he just frowned at her and slapped it away, already back to his old self. One genuine smile from Murphy was already far over the line for him.

“Now _this_ , this is something we celebrate. The great Wanheda,” he threw his arms out, dipping his head back in a great, drunken show, “saying fuck it all! Now, we drink!”

Clarke merely arched a brow. “You’re drunker than I thought if you think I’m touching that battery acid again.”

Murphy waved her off. “Pfft. You think that’s the only drink I’ve got, Princess? You insult me.”

He was already stumbling away out the room, off to raid whatever stores he had. Clarke watched him go in utter disbelief, thinking to herself if maybe Murphy had secretly gotten shot in the head too because—well, the only reason she thought he was drinking Monty’s discarded moonshine was because there was nothing else in the house. You know, like a sane person would assume.

But apparently Murphy just liked suffering, it seemed.

She sat back in sudden quiet and watched the fire trip up the shadows, felt the heat press on her skin like a physical hand.

“Better be warm there too,” Clarke murmured, to wherever she was.

Lexa always hated the cold.

-

The next time Clarke opened her eyes she was in a bathtub.

She also had no memory of how she got _into_ the bathtub.

Her head was splitting open, though, and Clarke groaned, digging her palms into her eyes and trying to duck her chin into her shoulder, to get away from where the sun was blazing in through the cracks in the window shutters next to her. It took a moment, where she waited until the sun felt less like an insult before she put her hands back down, and blinked back into awareness.

Frowning, Clarke stared down at the tangle of her body in the bath. One of her legs was hanging over the side and the limb felt like it’d long gone asleep, but what gathered her confusion more was the couple empty glass bottles rolling around her feet, one even sitting on her chest.

She also seemed to have lost her shirt. And her hair felt damp. _And_ there was this weird ache between her ribs, one that made each breath into her lungs noticeable. “Goddam Murphy,” Clarke swore under her breath, unsure how this was his fault but absolutely certain it was.

So maybe she’d had just a little too much last night.

But hey, if being in a coma for two years and then finding out you’ve been wrongfully accused of killing the love of your life, and to top it off to know that not one fucking person who you’d given your life for even cared to come find you; if all that _isn’t_ a reason to drink, then what the hell is?

Clarke summoned whatever leftover strength in her aching muscles and grabbed the sides of the bathtub, pulled herself up. It was an action she immediately regretted, of course, because then her head was spinning and her stomach was heaving and she only barely stumbled out the bath in time and lunged for the toilet cracked right through the tank.

When she was finally done heaving her guts out, Clarke sat back on her knees, the tiles cold on her skin. She fumbled for the clean looking towel hung up near the bathroom counter and dragged it down, wiping off her face and wincing at how it pulled badly at her stiff neck. Apparently sleeping in a bathtub wasn’t indicative of good spinal health.

Go figure.

She was about to get back up, or maybe just sleep for a couple extra centuries, but as she went to throw the towel back over the rail she saw something flash on the underside of her wrist. Curious, Clarke brought it back into her lap and twisted her forearm, eyeing the dark patch she’d spotted.

The second she realised what it was, nausea rolled right back into her stomach.

It was a small gear. She’d clearly drawn it in sometime last night, but the lines instead of being the smooth skill it should have been—they were shaky, and blurred, like no matter how fast she kept blinking she still couldn’t see, kept messing up the ink.

Clarke stared at it for a long while.

An uncontrollable shiver broke her out of it. She glanced down, remembering that, oh yeah, no shirt, and then scanned the decrepit bathroom to see if it was anywhere. Surprisingly enough it was, but it was splayed out on the floor of the shower with the usual dark blue now stained red beyond repair. Thoughtlessly Clarke rubbed at where the stain was on her shirt but on her chest, felt the remnants of a patch of something sticky and gross there on her skin.

The memory resurfaced. They had been debating something stupid and midway through it, Murphy had gotten too worked up and thrown his arms out to the sides, giving her just the most disbelieved look he could at whatever stance she was taking on their argument—except he’d forgotten about the wine bottle in his hands, and like in slow motion half the thing had gotten drenched over her shirt.

“I _knew_ it,” Clarke hissed.

Goddamn Murphy.

-

But Murphy was smarter than people gave him credit for, and so when Clarke groggily stumbled around and snagged a shirt from the drawers of her stolen bedroom, her mind narrowed into the single-minded focus of finding Murphy and killing him. Because oddly enough, a dead person didn’t have a whole lot of clothing, and so the murder of one was a deathly serious matter.

She eventually found him in the kitchen.

He looked about as grave-risen as her, except before she could even open her mouth he was turning around and shoving a plate into her hands. A plate with a whole selection of fruit he seemed to have cut up and prepared.

Murphy raised a brow at her, watching how Clarke clearly looked caught between whether to accept the bribery or follow through. “Fresh from outside,” he taunted, jerking his chin back to the window like he knew he’d already won.

One thing Clarke never expected Murphy to be good at; it was gardening. But he’d been hunted and camped out here for two years. He had to stay alive somehow.

“That was a good shirt,” Clarke grumbled, but she took the plate and Murphy smirked, smug off victory. She glared at him and trudged over to the kitchen table, collapsing into the chair. There was still that unexplainable slight pain in her chest, though. “Hey, do you know why my chest hurts?”

Murphy frowned. He paused from where it looked like he was chugging an entire canteen of water. “Your chest hurts?”

She nodded and rubbed her palm into where it ached around her ribs, to show him.

He seemed to think it over before shrugging in defeat. “I barely remember much of last night.”

“You clearly remembered my shirt.”

“No, I don’t. I just heard you cursing my name when you were stomping through the house after waking up. And you’ve got a pretty bloody record of what happens to people who piss you off.” He gestured to the plate she was still going through. “So I set up some preventative countermeasures.”

“Look at you using multisyllabic words.”

Murphy rolled his eyes, though he scoffed through a weirdly relaxed smile. Insults always seemed to do the opposite to him. Never riled him up, but brought him down. It was the language he knew.

“Sure, insult the person who saved your life.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the morning. Murphy made himself his own plate and sat down with her, eating with that same slow, careful pace as her, like every bite was just that tiny inch further on toeing the cliff edge—with that cliff edge being throwing up.

But nothing else really went wrong. They managed the meal without diving for the sink and Clarke leant back in her chair, closing her eyes and breathing in the dusty air, feeling it stretch inside her lungs.

She looked out to the front windows. One of them wasn’t even a window anymore, just crudely nailed in wooden panels replacing it. The sun was still streaming in, but it was coming in through patches now, clouds starting to creep in and block its escape. It didn’t bode well, because it most likely meant rain.

And rain always brought her back to one exact memory.

“I can’t do this,” Clarke whispered.

Murphy was still halfway through an apple slice, but he stopped and frowned across to her. “Can’t do what?”

“Just _sit_ here,” Clarke snarled, and she burst up to her feet and shoved the plate off to the table so it crashed into the floor. Murphy didn’t move, just looked at her with wide eyes. “Is this really all there fucking is? You brought me back and for what—for what? So we can sit here and eat and drink like everything is fucking fine? Like nothing’s even goddamn changed?”

“Clarke,” Murphy said slowly, raising a placating hand.

Clarke ignored him. “He’s still here, Murph. He’s still fucking here. Every day I wake up and pretend, but I’ve known since the second, the _second_ that I was awake again, that I remembered. I’m going to kill him,” Clarke swore, breathless from the storm waking up in her chest. “There’s nothing left for me. Nothing but _that_.”

“And what are you going to fucking do?” Murphy snapped. He had jumped to his feet, too, but he had positioned himself in front her, blocking her from moving. From the front door. “You think I was joking before? He’s untouchable. Anyone catches just a hint of your face and they’ll cut you down before you’ve even made it to the front step. I won’t argue he doesn’t deserve it, because I was _there_ , Princess,” Murphy reminded, staring hard into her eyes, his hand hovering over chest, hesitant to push her back but about to do it, anyway. “I was there. The prick deserves everything you would give to him, but _you_ don’t deserve to die for that.”

“Yeah? And so what am I going to do? Am I to spend the rest of my days in this house doing nothing and waiting for some retribution that’ll never come?”

Murphy exhaled sharply through his nose, gritted his teeth. “You could go back. To Arcadia. Your mother and Kane are—”

“Pike is Chancellor,” Clarke cut in. “And he’s probably the reason no one went for me. He’d want me just as dead too. I told you before; I don’t care anymore. I have nothing. _Nothing_.”

“Titus will kill you!”

Clarke stared right back at him. “He will try.”

Murphy struggled for a retort, that seething hatred and certainty in her voice seeming to unnerve him, no idea how to convince her out of something like that. Clarke used it to push him aside. She didn’t know where to go but she knew she had to leave, aiming for the door.

But Murphy caught her arm.

Her eyes flashed up to his, but he was already letting her go, brought up his hands in a show of peace. “I need you to hear me out on something first.”

“I’m not going back, Murphy,” Clarke muttered. “Arcadia—”

“Not about Arcadia,” he said quickly. Clarke’s brow twitched, relaxing only just. Murphy at least seemed to notice and exhaled in relief. “Look, it’s just—I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a while, okay? But I never knew how to bring it up because, well. It… would probably be the worst thing to randomly bring up around you.”

“Spit it out,” Clarke snapped, already tired of the run-arounds.

“I don’t think she’s dead,” Murphy rushed out all at once.

Clarke stared at him. Slowly, she turned fully back around. Stepped up to him till they were dangerously close. “I don’t mind most of the shit you say, Murphy,” Clarke said quietly, never tearing her eyes off him. “But if you fuck with me, on _this_ …”

She didn’t need to finish the threat.

But Murphy was already shaking his head. “No, listen, I—I’ve been thinking about this for a while. And then especially last night, when you mentioned about that Conclave shit. How they never went through with it.” He spoke fast, likely knowing that he had a few seconds of defence only. “I believe this. I really do. Ever since that day, and when we never saw her again.”

“You survived a shot to the head,” Murphy said, slower now. Seeing that she hadn’t stopped him yet. He swallowed roughly and pushed on. “You survived that with the whole world wanting you dead for it. And she got off with even _less_ than that.”

Clarke tried to control her breathing. “We saw her die.”

“I saw _you_ die, too.”

She took a staggered step back, had to grip the chair with a white-knuckled fist to keep up.

Murphy softened his voice. “Think about it. You said it before: they should have had the Conclave by now. The war is done, there’s no excuse. And yet…”

“So why isn’t she here, then?” Clarke countered. Her voice came out strained, just shaking and shaking. “Why is Aden still sitting on the throne?”

“He still killed her, Princess. You too. It was an accident, yeah, but—he knows she’ll be pissed, that not even his title could save him. I think he’s keeping her somewhere. He didn’t ever actually _want_ her dead, and his fucking job is to look after Heda, anyway. Wouldn’t he do all he could to keep her alive?”

Clarke’s eyes dropped to her hand. Where it was squeezing the chair so hard her fingers strained. “You seriously believe he’s keeping her somewhere, alive, but…”

“I think if you really are going to kill him,” Murphy said carefully, pulling in a steadying breath, “then you don’t do it blindly. If you want to do this—fine, it’s not like anyone’s been good at fucking stopping you. But you need to do this carefully. You might not give a shit about what happens, but _I_ did not dig you out of the ground and sit by your piece of shit bedside for two entire years just to watch you kill yourself being stupid the second you were able.”

Her eyes blurred before she could stop it. She deliberately averted her gaze to hide it, but knew Murphy saw because he stepped back from her, let her have her privacy. “I can’t…” she closed her eyes and tempered her breathing. “I can’t hope like that. Not anymore. But don’t underestimate me.”

She opened her eyes to see him frown.

“This isn’t blind,” Clarke said, too quiet. “I’m not going back into the ground unless Titus is with me. I will find a way to get to him. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, or what I have to do; I _will_ find him. No one is untouchable. There is always a way in.”

Murphy considered her words. Then, he sighed and tipped his head back. “You are the worst person I’ve ever met,” he mumbled up to the ceiling. When he glanced back down, though, he waved a tired hand in resignation. “But I’m with you. Let’s kill the bastard.”

“You’re… with me?”

Murphy glared. “Try not to drown me with your appreciation.”

Clarke just continued staring at him in disbelief.

He became serious for that. “You can’t do this alone. And believe it or not, I want him dead too. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on this shitty ground watching over my shoulder, just waiting for his face to pop up and put me down. I want to be free.” And then, quieter: “You’re not the only one who wants someone back.”

“You could die for this,” Clarke warned him. “You probably will.”

Murphy merely smirked like he always did. “Can’t kill a cockroach. You would know.”

Clarke kicked his shin for that. He made a show like it hurt far more than it actually did, glaring up at her and muttering about how it wasn’t like she had a whole line of people willing to help her, but Clarke only stared at him and came to the slow realisation that he was serious, that they were really _doing this_.

He seemed to sober up at seeing the decision settle in her eyes.

“We can’t do this alone,” Clarke said, grimacing. “We’ll need help.”

Murphy raised a sarcastic brow. “And just why do you think anybody would help us? Everyone out there will kill you on sight.”

“Because she’s one of the rare few who would hesitate.” Murphy kept looking at her expectantly for a clear answer. “She trusts next to no one,” Clarke explained. “Barely even herself. So I doubt she would trust Titus’ word.”

“That’s risking a lot,” Murphy said.

Clarke laughed lowly back in the back of her throat, waved her hand out to the crumbling house around them. “What else do we have?”

And even Murphy couldn’t deny that.

-

Abby arrived in the early evening, the rain pouring down in earnest.

Clarke watched her through the window. Ever since she’d gotten solid control of body again, doing what she could to regain the muscle—one of the things she was always doing was watching the windows. The outside. Mostly on the lookout, as dying had only increased her paranoia, really, but also for the small reason that sometimes, her eyes got caught between the trees. In the shadows.

Sometimes, she could make a shape out of them. See a person there standing between like she’d never left.

But there was always nothing.

Abby was quick to rush her horse into the makeshift stables she and Murphy had built, led the panting creature into the dry barn and troughs of water to chug down. After a month it wasn’t as bad anymore, but anytime Abby had to leave she always raced back like if she was a second too late she’d come back to find Clarke bleeding out on the floor. Clarke tried to tell her she was fine, that if there was a problem it would’ve shown itself by now.

Each time her mother nodded, laughed it off. And still kept racing back.

“Clarke,” Abby exhaled, stepping in through the door sopping wet, that intense relief like always in her voice. Clarke gave a small smile back to her, though she frowned after getting up from the kitchen chair and took her coat that was pretty much a deadweight it was so soaked.

“You should have stayed in Arcadia,” Clarke said, hesitant. Because she knew what the response was going to be. “Then you wouldn’t have got caught in the rain.”

Predictably, Abby waved her off. “Rain is good. The tanks should be filled to the brim after tonight.” She stopped a moment, eyes rapidly scanning Clarke up and down, looking for if anything had gone wrong. Clarke tried to be annoyed, but she had a whole lot of experience of the unexpected going wrong. It was impossible to hate her mother for it.

Still, Clarke knew exactly what was coming when Abby’s brow furrowed in.

“You look tired,” Abby murmured, thoughtlessly reaching out and placing the back of her hand on Clarke’s forehead. “How do you feel? Any headaches, numbness, weakness?”

Clarke swatted her mother’s hand away. “Can we not do this for five minutes?”

Abby’s face shuttered hard. “Clarke.”

That tone never meant anything good.

“It’s nothing,” Clarke sighed, giving in. Unfortunately, the stubbornness trait was genetic, and some ground you really just have to give up if only to save yourself the trouble. “Murphy and I just… had a little too much last night. It’s nothing more than that.”

Abby’s eyes flashed. “You got drunk, Clarke? Even despite your _brain injury_?”

“It’s been a month,” Clarke snapped. “My brain is fine.”

Abby just gave the _oh, it is absolutely_ not _fine_ look.

Clarke’s eyes widened, recognising the way Abby was already sighing and bracing herself. “Don’t say it,” she said quickly, but it was already too late.

“We’re doing a diagnostic check,” Abby said solemnly.

Clarke merely hung her head.

They did it in Clarke’s room and at this point she let herself zone out and follow the motions. Answer the questions, look the way she was supposed to. Breathe in deep, hold it, release. Abby was in full doctor mode and Clarke mostly let her mind trail off, thinking back to the fight she’d had with Murphy this morning.

She felt different now. Each day before had been like borrowed time. She wasn’t even a person, really, and certainly nothing of who she had been. She was just a ghost, waiting to be clawed back into the ground. Every day felt like walking a minefield, just seeing if this was it, if this would be her final step. She had no purpose. No reason.

The numbness in her, it wasn’t physical. It was soul-deep.

The only thing that made her _feel_ was when she thought about Titus. Something always opened up deep within her chest then, like a black hole that was reaching, that would destroy the entire damn universe if only to reach that one particular star nestled right at the edge. It was the one thing that made her feel awake.

She didn’t know what to think about what Murphy thought about Lexa.

Because either way, Clarke would find him.

“All done.”

Clarke blinked and glanced up. Abby removed the stethoscope from her ears, hanging it from her neck and offering a reassuring smile. She reached out and gently squeezed Clarke’s shoulder, let the hand trail down her arm. “All good?”

“All good,” Abby repeated.

Clarke nodded, still lost in her thoughts.

Abby seemed to notice.

“I know what you want to do.” Her eyes snapped back to Abby’s for that, but her mother only smiled sadly, like she’d been running that same circle and was finally giving up. “You always were the best of your father, Clarke. But,” she sighed, and lost her smile, “I have always feared you’ve taken some of the worst of me.”

Clarke swallowed thickly. “I don’t…”

Abby shot her a sharp look. “I’m not as oblivious as you think I am. You think I don’t know my own daughter?”

She had nothing to say to that.

“When your father died…” Abby started carefully, even though her voice shook like it always did, when she talked about him. She forced in a fortifying breath and cleared her throat, steadied her voice. “When your father died,” she said, clearer, “I had to walk in each day and I had to look Thelonious in the eye. I know you have not forgiven me for what happened, and I would never expect you to. But what I will selfishly ask, is that you at least listen to me for this: I did not expect for Thelonious to react so harshly. I never wanted Jake dead, not even hurt. I just wanted to save him. From himself.”

Abby was quiet for a moment, staring at the floor. The silence between them was so tense it was almost like a physical presence. How the air was like a live wire, would burn your hands if you pushed too close. But then Abby was rubbing her face and looking up with a new resolve in her eyes.

“I thought about it every day. Every council meeting, every time I had to be in a room alone with him. I had to sit with the knowledge that it would be so _easy_ , for me. I’m a doctor.” Abby gave her a dark smile. “I know exactly how to save people. I know exactly what you _shouldn’t_ do.”

“But you did nothing,” Clarke countered, voice tight. She tried to make it not sound like an accusation and failed on all fronts.

Abby just nodded, though. “Because I had you.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “I was in solitary.”

“In which one day you would come out. You really think I would let them float you? No. And if I did something, if I followed that impulse…” Abby grimaced, shook her head. “What would you come back to? Nothing. You would come back to nothing. And there was no part of me that could bear a betrayal like that to you. I had already hurt you enough.”

They let the silence spread out between them.

Abby’s eyes jumped between Clarke’s own. “You loved her, didn’t you?” she asked softly.

Clarke clenched her jaw and braced herself for the fight she knew her mother would give. “I know what I’m going to do. There’s nothing you can say.”

“Polis is one of the most protected places on the planet,” Abby argued, almost frantically. She made a move to reach forward, to touch her hand, but then pulled back before she could, tentative fingers retracting into a fist, instead digging the knuckles into her own knee. “And that’s not even considering the bounty that would no doubt be on your head if people found out you were alive.”

“Then I won’t let people find out.”

Abby’s jaw tensed in the same way Clarke’s had. “This isn’t just about the _logistics_ of it, Clarke. You’re… you’ve already done so much. Lost so much. I know you still get nightmares about the Mountain, and now you want to add this?”

“This,” Clarke spat, shoulders tightening like chains, “isn’t about _me_. Titus knew exactly what was coming to him the moment he picked up that gun. I did what I had to, and I gave everything of me and it still wasn’t enough. So what if I’m fucking tired of it? So what if I’m _done_.”

She hadn’t realised how riled up she had gotten until she felt hands grabbing her wrists, gently pulling them back down, making them still. Clarke frowned, still breathing hard in the aftermath, but Abby’s face was different, now. Resigned.

“I know I can’t stop you,” Abby admitted, made sure Clarke was looking her right in the eyes. A choked laugh broke out and her eyes were shining in the dim light, the rain still beating down above them like bullets. “I know that. I always have. But please, you must know that… if you do this, if you go through with it; I’m not sure you can come back from it.”

Clarke dragged her hands out of Abby’s grip. “Lexa’s dead,” she whispered, the words sticking in her throat. “I already can’t come back from this.” 

Abby looked at her desperately. “If you kill Titus, no one can testify what he did. You would spend the rest of your life running. No one will take Murphy’s word, and they certainly won’t take mine. What about after?”

“I don’t care about after.”

Abby pulled back and stared at her with wide-eyes. Pleading eyes.

But she blinked slow, and Clarke knew that she believed her.

That was probably the worst part.

**Author's Note:**

> if youve read my stuff before, youll be pleased to know THIS time ive got the next two chapters already written for this, so ill update next week and the week after.  
> however AFTER that i am not making any promises for regular updating. im already writing too many things bc i am an idiot so ill be upfront now: please dont expect regular, on time updates for this. im doing my best, but i also know me, so im warning you now. 
> 
> anyway. thank you for taking the time of day to read this. it really does mean a lot to me. i wish you all a good one, and i hope you stay safe!


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